Simon Rettenbacher (or Rettenpacher) was an Austrian Benedictine who wrote plays and lyric poems primarily in Latin but also in German. His chief claims to fame are his five surviving Latin tragedies, Osiris, Atys, Demetrius, Perseus, and Rosimunda, which were published with four other Latin plays in the 1683 volume Selecta Dramata (Selected Dramas). Although of the five tragedies Demetrius is, so far, the only one to have been republished since 1683, Atys is likely to possess the broadest appeal. Each of the tragedies is designed not only to be instructive but also to hold the interest of the nonscholarly but educated audiences that tended to be alienated by the use of Latin. Thus, in his preface to Selecta Dramata Rettenbacher announces that he has taken liberties with the rules of Aristotelian drama and has tried to avoid obscurity in his Latin. He also inserted allegorical interludes and comic subplots...